EUGENE – In football-mad Texas, longtime high school coaches Jim Streety and Hal Wasson are linked by longevity, success and – on Sunday afternoons this fall – Bralon Addison.

As a quarterback at Hightower High outside of Houston, Addison faced Streety’s Madison High squad from San Antonio and Wasson’s powerhouse Southlake Carroll team from Dallas just once each. Yet the psychic damage the senior QB inflicted in those 2011 state playoff games – and so effortlessly, too -- remains vivid to some of Texas’ most notable coaches.

So it holds to form that when assistants this fall share Addison’s latest exploits with Streety or Wasson, their resistance is as futile as their strategies to defend him were two years ago.

“I say I’d rather not think about it,” said Streety, now in his 47th year of coaching.

He pauses. Maybe he remembered how Addison scored five touchdowns in that 5A semifinal victory, including a 42-yard run on the game’s first play.

“I’ve never seen a guy like this other than Thurman Thomas.”

Wasson musters a low chuckle describing the mood of those reminders (and this is the coach whose team actually beat Hightower for the 5A state title). Before the playoffs, he listened to Houston coaching friends warn him “good luck.” During the game he assigned no fewer than two defenders on Addison each play, only to see him tear off an 80-yard touchdown run that nearly fueled a Hightower rally. Now, well after that game, he is both hopeful he won’t face a player like that again soon while feeling for Pac-12 defensive coordinators.

For it is now their task to game plan for No. 2 Oregon’s sophomore receiver whose athleticism and maturity have always been beyond his years.

“This kid Bralon Addison -- and we’ve seen some of the greatest talent in high school,” Wasson said, “is the best I’ve ever seen.”

***

Two parents, on two different phone calls, from two different areas near Houston, breathe deeply before sharing the exact same memory of their son.

It was pee-wee football and the pint-sized Addison was, as usual, a force. At 6 he told his parents, Sonya Swindell and Julius Addison, he wanted to play football, then made the traveling all-star team in league for those only 7-and-over.

But with seconds left, no timeouts and still yards from the end zone, Addison dove out of bounds to stop the clock and set up one more attempt. He rushed for the game-winning score on the final play.

“How many little kids would know that?” Swindell asked.

In truth, she and Julius, who separated when Addison was 4, both know his precocious maturity and athleticism is where it comes from, and why it has now led the 5-foot-10 Addison to a standout sophomore season for the Ducks (6-0, 3-0 Pac-12). His six receiving touchdowns lead UO, and his two touchdowns on punt returns against Cal cemented his status as yet another game-breaking weapon for Oregon’s offense, which already had an embarrassment of riches in talent.

A brash on-field persona is just a temporary cover for a self-proclaimed “shy” player who was so torn about de-committing from Texas A&M that he cried in a car ride home with his mother upon returning from his Oregon recruiting visit. He decided to attend Oregon under the initial condition that she move with him.

“The maturity came a long way and I questioned myself, could I go that far and survive?” he said. “I think everyone who grows up 18 years someplace and goes 2,000 miles away has that fear.”

It is that initial reservation, and eventual domination, that parents and friends say carry all the hallmarks of Addison.

The athleticism stems from a family whose lineage is interwoven with sports. Julius played a bit of college football, as have multiple cousins. An uncle, Bubba McDowell, played in the NFL.

The maturity is harder to trace but arrived just as early. Addison learned to walk and talk earlier than expected, Swindell said, and when she’d arrive home, her son’s homework was done -- typically in order to play video games sooner.

Bralon Addison celebrates against Colorado this season, one of his breakout games with 157 yards receiving on five catches.Randy L. Rasmussen/The Oregonian

It was fostered by an ever-present extended family of uncles, cousins and coaches who all were given free rein to hold Addison in line. Annual family reunions were hosted at an aunt’s house. He estimates he’d need to request 25 tickets for family if UO played in Texas.

“When I was a young kid my parents, they both worked a lot and sometimes I had to stay home by myself at a young age,” Addison said. “I just learned to be more mature at an early age from being around my older cousins.”

“It developed into this really, really serious, mature thing about himself,” Julius said. “It would blow their mind how he’d interact with a conversation with teenagers when he was kid, and then with adults when he was a teenager. They’d be so impressed.”

The circle of those impressed by Addison would only grow until it reached the West Coast.

Barry Abercrombie was an assistant when Addison led Hightower to a state title appearance as a freshman, then was head coach in their runner-up season as a senior in 2011. He watched as Addison led his basketball team to the state tournament. After three downs at quarterback, he punted, too, though often it meant he ran for a first down.

“He just made you feel kind of helpless,” Streety said. “It makes for a long afternoon on the sidelines when you know you can’t tackle or catch the guy.”

Recruiters showed up because of Addison’s eye-popping statistics and versatility, but stuck around because of the stories Abercrombie would tell about his character. Such as, say, the time a Houston-area TV station twice tried to award Addison its player of the week honor, only to have him refuse each time, requesting a teammate win it.

“Now trust me, he was very confident in his abilities, but he was never arrogant or cocky about it,” said Abercrombie, now the head coach at Klein Forest High. “He was a very good teammate.”

That piqued the interest from Oregon’s coaches, who repeatedly reference character in recruiting. The only problem was that Scott Frost contacted Addison the day he’d verbally committed to Oklahoma State in February of his junior season. Later that spring, when Cowboys offensive recruiter Dana Holgorsen left for West Virginia, Addison chose Texas A&M and even became a de facto recruiter for the Aggies -- until head coach Mike Sherman, and his staff, was fired.

“They had this whole Ag-Swag thing going on that he spearheaded to get more kids to go to A&M,” said Frost, who joined Mark Helfrich and Chip Kelly on a home visit in January. “Our rule is when a kid is committed somewhere else we let them be. The only way we'll get back involved is if a kid reaches back out to us and starts to question his commitment. … Once they let Sherman go Bralon was looking around, and rightfully so.”

Last-minute commitment switches are the stuff of recruiting lore, but in Addison’s case, it was the truth.

Frost arrived in the Hightower hallway in January wearing an Oregon jacket with a not-so-subtle 2012 Rose Bowl pin. Addison had previously canceled a visit to Arkansas, but scheduled a trip to Eugene with his mother on the final weekend of recruiting, in late January. Each raved about the Oregon visit.

He wants to be a studio analyst – teammates call him “Bralon A. Smith” for his unassailable opinions in the mold of a certain ESPN broadcaster – and UO’s broadcast journalism department played to his interests. And yet…

“I woke up Monday morning and signing day was Wednesday and told her I think I’m going to Texas A&M,” Bralon said. “I remember her just being so upset.”

“I kind of pushed him to going there,” Swindell said. “He was at a point on the way home where he was skeptical about going.”

With an assist to his mother, he joined close friend Chance Allen, who also grew up in Missouri City, Texas, as roommates and members of UO’s 2012 recruiting class.

And members of something larger, something that reminded him of home.

***

For a guy who earned the nickname “The Matrix” in high school for his jaw-dropping elusiveness, Addison’s favorite move is doing nothing. Really.

“I honestly don’t know if the kid does anything but play football, go to school and play video games, that’s the kid he is,” Frost said.

Addison admits that where other recruits are turned off by Eugene’s incessant winter rain, he saw a reason to stay indoors and play his beloved video games or watch movies. He’s recently tried, in vain, to persuade his father about the genius of the TV show “Breaking Bad.”

“I’ll pick a movie over a party any day,” he said. “I’m really a couch potato sometimes.”

That split personality – from slouch to blazing wideout -- is one reason why when he does get going on these fall Saturdays, it’s not a gradual acceleration. Ask Colorado and Washington, who watched, helpless, as he exploded for a combined four touchdowns and 315 receiving yards in the past two weeks. Dating to Sept. 28 against Cal, he’s averaging 27.1 yards each of his last 17 touches.

This is the product, Frost and Addison say, of an offseason of quiet, dutiful work to get better by being one of the team’s most poised players.

“He’s having the time of his life,” Julius Addison said. “As a dad I’m super proud of him.”

His rise matches the speed with which his family will emerge in his life if he ever strays, however. When UO receivers coach Matt Lubick called Swindell last spring about her son’s slacking study habits, she called his father. Both let him have it.

“I always told everybody that when you think about split parents you think about they hate each other or things like that,” Addison said. “But dealing with me they can tag team like it’s nothing. It’s kind of like The Rock and Stone Cold (Steve Austin). If I’m wrong they get on me 100 percent and if I need help they come together any way they can. That’s been a part of my success.”

Yet what allowed him to finally decide to leave home, and tell his mother she wouldn’t need to move to Eugene after all, was the acceptance he felt within the team should he need to step outside of his shell. On his recruiting trip, he found in the receivers’ self-described “2 Live Krew” group a unit as close as his Houston family.

“We’re so united. It was much easier for me to relax and know I’m not the only guy far from home,” he said.

When it’s raining, and he’s inside his room – both common occurrences in Oregon – Addison often will lift his window to listen to the rain. He finds it calming, and befitting his laid-back nature.